THIS Christmas the shops will be full of manuals advising women on how to live a happy life.

They include The Modern Maiden’s Handbook, The Goddess Guide, The Grown Up Girl’s Guide To Life, The Essential Guide To Being A Girl and Trinny and Susannah: The Survival Guide.

Trinny and Susannah are, apparently, body shape and style gurus who, as well as humiliating people on television, sell Original Magic Knickers.

“Iron out those lumps and bumps with The Bum Lifter, The Tummy Flattener and The Bum, Tum and Thigh Reducer,” they urge.

But isn’t that cheating?

I mean, if she snares a husband this way, what’s he going to think on the wedding night when his bride disrobes and everything drops south?

If a woman is going to go to all that trouble to change her shape why not just wear a very large bin liner?

And don’t go on about sauce, goose and gander. If you were to tell a bloke all he needed to wear for a night out was a triple XXX sweatshirt to hide his beer belly, he’d be only too happy to oblige.

Anyway, all these books are female assertive. After all, we are in the 21st century, equality is a thing of the past and women are in control.

Even God is now acknowledged as a woman. Just ask Her.

It’s enough to make anyone nostalgic for those long gone days when everything had its place in the world, including ladees.

When everyone knew their roles and girls’ guides had a much more harmonious quality. Such as this list of DO’S and DON’TS that were issued as advice on The Art Of Winning A Man’s Complete Love:

DO accept him at face value, DON’T try to change him.

DO admire the manly things about him, DON’T show indifference, contempt or ridicule towards his masculine abilities, achievements or ideas.

DO recognise his superior strength and ability, DON’T try to excel him in anything that requires masculine ability.

DO be a domestic goddess, DON’T let the outside world crowd you for time to do your homemaking tasks well.

DO revere your husband and honour his right to rule you and your children, DON’T stand in the way of his decisions or his law.

By heck, but that’s telling it like it was. Repeat that today and a chap would be dangling from the nearest lamp post. By his unmentionables.

When was that written? Back in Victorian England?

Actually, no. It comes from the 1963 book Fascinating Womanhood. An era when we already had rock ‘n’ roll and the Beatles.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t until late in the 60s and early 70s that the whole women’s equality thing got going with Germaine Greer’s Female Eunuch and Burn Your Bra campaigns.

Of course, Germaine Greer came from Australia where women still need equality.

This is the nation where a group of ladees have, since 1993, given the Ernie Awards to Ozzy blokes who make outrageously sexist statements.

This year, they have published The Ernies Book of “1,000 terrible things Australian men have said about women”.

Such as the magistrate who told a female defendant: “Come back when your IQ is as high as your skirt.”

And the trainer and boyfriend of an Olympic sprinter whose weight was known to fluctuate: “I never turned away from Cathy. No matter how fat she was.”

Appalling. So why doesn’t Germaine Greer go home and fight the good cause there?

Unless she wants to lead a new campaign against daft books telling women how to be fulfilled and have a happy life in Magic Knickers.

They know already. Ask them. They just grab it by the short and curlies.